The HubSpot Customer Service Blog

50 Customer Service Quotes to Inspire Your Team

Written by Sophia Bernazzani Barron | Jul 17, 2023 11:00:00 AM

Even though many people find working in customer service rewarding, it can also be challenging at times. To help keep you and your team motivated, we've compiled a list of 50 customer service quotes.

While some of the best customer service quotes focus on treating your customers properly, others extend further than business and can impact your life.

Here's a look at 50 empowering customer service quotes from business and motivational leaders from around the world.

50 of the Best Customer Service Quotes

1. "We don't want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want." — Laura Ashley

2. "I believe in the power of recognition and empowerment leading to great employee engagement. And employee engagement is critical to guest engagement. Employee empowerment and recognition is the core of our culture and how we achieve outstanding customer service." — Herve Humler

3. "When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed." — Indra Nooyi

4. "A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well." — Jeff Bezos

5. "Customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company." — Tony Hsieh

6. "Instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer." — Scott Cook

7. "It's through vulnerability that human beings create connections. The more vulnerable we can be with one another, the more that we'll trust one another and the more we'll be able to collaborate effectively." — Neil Blumenthal

8. "Good customer service costs less than bad customer service." — Sally Gronow

9. "The more advocates you have, the fewer ads you have to buy." — Dharmesh Shah

10. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." — Maya Angelou

11. "As a membership site, we're always focused on reducing churn and increasing satisfaction. We know that collecting feedback from customers throughout the customer's life cycle has allowed us to achieve both." — James Bake

12. "You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work." — Laurie McIntosh

13. "What sets us apart as a company is that we want to deal with anyone that owns our product, regardless of where you bought it. If you have an issue with a Santa Cruz Bike and come to us with your issue, we'll help you resolve your issue." — Kyle Harder

14. "Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It's a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do if you're to bring it to your customer interactions." — Betsy Sanders

15. "Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team." — Lisa Masiello

16. "To earn the respect (and eventually love) of your customers, you first have to respect those customers. That is why Golden Rule behavior is embraced by most of the winning companies." — Colleen Barrett

17. "When you help others feel important, you help yourself feel important too." — David J. Schwartz

18. "Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement." — James Cash Penny

19. "We see customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job to make the customer experience a little bit better." — Jeff Bezos

20. "You don't earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day." — Jeffery Gitomer

21. "Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They'll just walk away." — Marilyn Suttle

22. "If you don't care, your customer never will." — Marlene Blaszczyk

23. "Every company's greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company." — Michael LeBoeuf

24. "It is not your customer's job to remember you, it is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don't have the chance to forget you." — Patricia Fripp

25. "If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours." — Ray Kroc

26. "When the customer comes first, the customer will last." — Robert Half

27. "When a customer complains, he is doing you a special favor; he is giving you another chance to serve him to his satisfaction. You will appreciate the importance of this opportunity when you consider that the customer's alternative option was to desert you for a competitor." — Seymour Fine

28. "Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, read Rule 1." — Stew Leonard

29. "The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people." — Tom Peters

30. "A sale is not something you pursue; it's what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer." — Unknown

31. "Be dramatically willing to focus on the customer at all costs, even at the cost of obsoleting your own stuff." — Scott D. Cook

32. "A lot of people have fancy things to say about customer service, but it's just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, persevering, compassionate kind of activity." — Christopher McCormick

33. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." — Bill Gates

34. "Whether it's a bored demeanor, a dismissive look or just plain rude behavior, sloppy customer service spells disaster faster than just about any other business transgression." — Lauren Simonds

35. "If the shopper feels like it was poor service, then it was poor service. We are in the customer perception business." — Mark Perrault

36. "Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers." — Kate Nasser

37. "Sales without Customer Service is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes." — David Tooman

38. "Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy." — Marshall Field

39. "Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer." — Denis Waitley

40. "To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity." — Don Alden Adams

41. "Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards." — Elbert Hubbard

42. "To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation." — Francois de La Rochefoucauld

43. "Sometimes one can become lost in a big company and lose sight of how what one does truly helps or impacts the end customer. If you are one of those, think of a fire brigade, a line of people passing buckets of water from one to the other from a source of water to the site of the fire. An individual in the brigade may not be able to see the end result, i.e., the water being thrown on the fire to put it out, but the contribution of the individual is indispensable to the final outcome." — Grant Bright

44. "Biggest question: Isn't it really 'customer helping' rather than customer service? And wouldn't you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?" — Jeffrey Gitomer

45. "If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune." — Jim Rohn

46. "The most important adage and the only adage is, the customer comes first, whatever the business, the customer comes first." — Kerry Stokes

47. "Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one!" — Laurice Leitao

48. "Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers." — Les Brown

49. "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." — Mahatma Gandhi

50. "A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all." — Michael LeBoeuf

We hope you enjoyed this roundup of our favorite customer service quotes.